New Research Suggests Evolution Might Favor 'Survival of the Laziest' (phys.org)

Zorro shares a report from Phys.org: If you've got an unemployed, 30-year-old adult child still living in the basement, fear not. A new large-data study of fossil and extant bivalves and gastropods in the Atlantic Ocean suggests laziness might be a fruitful strategy for survival of individuals, species and even communities of species. The results have just been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by a research team based at the University of Kansas. Looking at a period of roughly 5 million years from the mid-Pliocene to the present, the researchers analyzed 299 species' metabolic rates -- or, the amount of energy the organisms need to live their daily lives -- and found higher metabolic rates were a reliable predictor of extinction likelihood. "We wondered, 'Could you look at the probability of extinction of a species based on energy uptake by an organism?'" said Luke Strotz, postdoctoral researcher at KU's Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and lead author of the paper. "We found a difference for mollusk species that have gone extinct over the past 5 million years and ones that are still around today. Those that have gone extinct tend to have higher metabolic rates than those that are still living. Those that have lower energy maintenance requirements seem more likely to survive than those organisms with higher metabolic rates."

Strotz' co-author Bruce Lieberman added: "Maybe in the long term the best evolutionary strategy for animals is to be lassitudinous and sluggish -- the lower the metabolic rate, the more likely the species you belong to will survive. Instead of 'survival of the fittest,' maybe a better metaphor for the history of life is 'survival of the laziest' or at least 'survival of the sluggish.'"

Comments

"Fittest" means fitting the environment

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "instead of fittest". Sluggishness might be the best adaptation to an environment, so it could literally be what is meant by "survival of the fittest" in that environment. "Fittest" does not mean the most jacked.

poor understanding of survival of the fittest

[gravewax]

So now we are associating lower metabolic rates with laziness in a species? fucking really? adapting to your environment with a lower metabolism is the very fucking definition of "survival of the fittest", perhaps the writers of this article need to actually understand what that means.

I'm Reminded of an Ancient Saying

[Scarletdown]

I believe it was the philosopher Epicurus who said, "The early bird may get the worm; but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Re:I'm Reminded of an Ancient Saying

[PolygamousRanchKid]

but the second mouse gets the cheese.

"In a movie theater or in a war, the best seats are not in the first row."

These days, with technology like electric and autonomous cars, everyone seems to be obsessed with being "first".

Just maybe, the cautious folks who wait and see what mistakes the "firsts" have made . . . will in the end be more successful . . . ?

It all depends on who you are

[Opportunist]

The early bird catches the worm, but the early worm gets eaten.